Mistressclass : Recovering the body from the library
Liz Aggiss (UK)
Presented by Ausdance NSW and Critical Path
UK choreographer Liz Aggiss will present her unique and distinctive research, process and choreographic practice over one day workshop in Sydney. This fast tasking, quick thinking, performance-making workshop will invite participants to swiftly recover bodies from their libraries, dance the grotesque, reinvent expressionist works, brush up against Ausdruckstanz and write and deliver smart texts for the moving body.
Liz Aggiss is a British solo artist, artiste, performer, dancer, choreographer and dance film maker. Creating her work for small cabaret spaces, the stage and screen, Aggiss’ work is driven by content, embodies feminist dance practices and is framed by the politics that challenge and resist the ‘authority’ of formal conventions. Her work is informed by female visibility/invisibility, self determination, the aging body, personal archive and historical legacy, and is noted for its anarchic grotesque dance, dramaturgical structure, visuality and humour.
The workshop is aimed at dance, live art, performance art, theatrical types & artists and those that enjoy thinking and moving outside the box. Mature individuals with their own practice are most welcome.
Expect to choreograph, move in a mysterious manner, perform to real and imagined audiences, talk, probably shout a bit, show off, unlock preconceptions and discuss. Please wear comfortable movement clothes, bring a spare outfit, with accompanying shoes, that you like to dance/ perform in and don’t mind chucking around, multiple small props of your choice, and writing materials.
Places are limited to 20 participants.
Applications close 5pm, Wednesday 28 September.
Beyond the Training is an annual series of skills sharing and professional development workshops in partnership between Ausdance NSW and Critical Path.
Liz Aggiss was taught Rudolph von Laban’s modern educational dance in the UK, studied with Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis and Hanya Holm at the Dance Theatre Laboratory New York, attended Hanya Holm’s intensive programme at Colorado Springs, trained with Ausdruckstanzerein Hilde Holger in London and did workshops in Eccentric Dance with Barry and Joan Grantham. It is these mature artists and gifted pedagogues who are a constant presence and who laid down the foundations for her thirst for knowledge, hunger to perform and quest for individuality.
From her days in the early 1980’s supporting punk legends The Stranglers with her visual cabaret troupe The Wild Wigglers, to her classic solo Grotesque Dancer (1986), to her dance/opera duet Falling Apart at the Seams(1994), to her award winning BBC dance film Motion Control (2002), to her Guerrilla Dance interventions (2008), to her unconventional Performance Lecture Survival Tactics (2010), to her cross disciplinary performance The English Channel (2014), to her black comedy Slap and Tickle (2016), Liz Aggiss has been re(de)fining her own brand of British contemporary dance theatre performance and blurring the boundaries between high art and popular culture.
She received the Bonnie Bird Choreography Award 1994, Arts Council Dance Fellowship 2003, is Emeritus Professor University of Brighton and Hon. Doc. University of Gothenburg Sweden.